Milner: Let's kick-start our season now
James Milner has urged his Liverpool teammates to kick-start their season after showing fantastic spirit and character to win 5-4 at Norwich City in an enthralling encounter at Carrow Road on Saturday.
Jürgen Klopp's charges bounced back from their bitter defeat by Manchester United and, ahead of a big week of cup football for the Reds, the vice-captain insists the team have the belief to turn their inconsistent season around.
Speaking with the Liverpool Echo, Milner said: “This has to kick-start things.
“You look at how the season has gone for us, no-one thinks we have hit the heights we can or played particularly well consistently.
“The position we are in is not where we want to be but we’re not a million miles away from the top four. If we can put a few wins together we’ll be around that and we’re still in all the cup competitions.”
Reflecting on the thrilling moment when Adam Lallana scored a 95th-minute winner with the last kick of the game, Milner added: “I’ve played in hundreds of games but not many quite like that.
“They don’t come along too often. It was a great game for the neutrals - plenty of mistakes and a lot of good play as well.
“It summed up our season so far really. We showed what we can do but also we gave away some poor goals.
“There’s plenty for us to work on but it was great character from the boys to come back from 3-1 down and then respond again to that late equaliser and go again to get the win.
“It says a lot about the boys we’ve got in that dressing room. At 4-4 a lot of teams would have said ‘here we go again’ but we went straight up the other end and scored.”
During the wild celebrations following Lallana’s goal, Klopp saw his glasses broken, and Milner feels the joyous scenes showed just what it meant to the team to get the victory.
He added: “I saw [Klopp] messing about with his glasses after, but I didn’t realise they were broken.
“You could see with the scenes at the end what the three points meant. When moments like that come along you have to enjoy them.
“The fans were great for us. Norwich is not exactly around the corner is it? For them to get down there for the early kick-off and give us support like that... At 3-1 down they got behind us.
“The manager said earlier in the season we have to make them believe that something will happen to make sure they stay with us right to the end.
“We managed to do that and hopefully they will carry us on to more big results.
“We knew how important it was to get a result and it gives us some momentum going into the game on Tuesday.
“If we can build on this win and finish strongly, it can still be a successful season for us.”
With a Wembley trip the incentive, Liverpool now head into Tuesday’s Capital One Cup semi-final, second leg with Stoke City at Anfield with renewed confidence.
Jordon Ibe’s first-leg strike at the Britannia Stadium sees Klopp’s men protect a 1-0 lead, and Milner reveals the players are desperate to get to the national stadium once again.
He added: “We can get to Wembley by completing the job on Tuesday. For a season where we haven’t hit the heights we want to, we’re still in there.
“It’s only half-time. It’s a big game and we need to finish the job off.
“It’s going to be tough because Stoke are a decent side but coming off the back of this result is pleasing. That gives us a massive lift going into the Stoke game.”